When the water temperature breaks the mid-60s mark at the N.C. coast, inshore anglers start to get an itch that makes them spend all weekend on a skiff with nothing but a sandwich, a bucket of minnows, a few cold beers, and an outboard engine chugging along at its lowest speed.

Perched on the gunwale and holding his boat’s T-top, Craig Odom scanned the water from just beyond the transom of his lightly rocking center-console craft to several hundred yards behind the small red balloon that marked his most-distant baitfish’s location.

Lewis Emery of Wilmington prefers one approach to fishing for speckled trout. In fact, hes almost as hard-core as a mountain fly-fishing purist, although his targets are measured in pounds, not inches.